Sally StrobelightSwan Ride to StrobeLand

It might have been in some cobwebbed corner of the net, maybe under a fallen log in the deep dark woods, or next to a cryptic phrase chalked on concrete — a lover’s plea, a conspiracist’s warning? — that I first came across Sally Strobelight’s 2006 debut LP, Starships In Silhouette. I can’t remember exactly, which somehow seems appropriate. There’s something indescribable about its coldness, the end of the world, yet those cruel and chilly surfaces inexplicably combine heavy beats and acoustic sounds to drag the listener into an echoing world of encompassing warmth, of repetition that comforts and disturbs, of whispers direct yet overheard: “acoustic avant psychedelic of a cough syrup ghost world.”

Fast forward seven years — of plenty or of famine? — and Strobelight returns with Swan Ride to Strobeland. Here, her dubby echoes and drifting, haunted phrases illuminate a darkness where Starships In Silhouette confirmed it. “Kaleidoscope visuals and slow motion aerobic workout may occur … Subconscious communication with intergalactic consciousness is also probable during this time.” We come in pieces…